Starter Kit. Idea 345 of 500. Cluster 17
Pharmacy delivery with the prescription managed and the refills tracked
The mechanism, from the book
Sri Lankans abroad have parents at home whom they cannot look after from Melbourne. They will pay, and the money stays.
The first step
Talk to the owner of one local pharmacy and ask how many elderly customers collect the same prescription every month and how often they run out. Offer to run the list for 10 of them: a reminder, the refill picked up and delivered, and a note sent to the child abroad. Agree a monthly delivery fee with the pharmacist, and the first family that pays it is your first customer.
- Who pays first
- A child abroad whose parent takes several daily medicines and has run out before, who will pay a monthly fee not to find out by phone.
- What leaves today
- Refills now depend on a parent remembering and a relative driving; a tracked service keeps the sale local and gives the family abroad a record they can trust.
Ask first
- National Medicines Regulatory Authority. Ask what rules apply to delivering prescription medicines to patients' homes.
- Data Protection Authority. Ask what care is needed when sharing medicine records with family abroad.
Check before you spend
That the pharmacist stays responsible for every prescription, that deliveries keep medicines safe, and the patient's consent to updates sent abroad.
Find out these three numbers
- How many elderly customers collect the same prescription monthly?
- How often do they run out before refilling?
- What monthly fee will a family pay for managed refills?
A comparison from the book
Keep the customer. Appendix
"between the raw exporter and the brand is that the brand keeps the relationship."
A tracked refill keeps the family coming back every month, not just once.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.